Thursday, May 22, 2014

"Nothing happens by accident..."

The late President Franklin Roosevelt is known for the following astute observation which can be applied equally to education since education is controlled by politicians and others not normally considered integral to its success:

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."

The following excerpted material taken from a report of a conference of extremely influential persons, including some not normally associated with education, will help parents, teachers, and taxpayers understand that education restructuring has been on the burner for many, many years, and is no accident! The present controversies raging nationwide, such as Common Core, Assessment, Technology, downgrading of competition (get rid of grades), Community Centered Schools, Values Clarification, work force training, individual education plans, global education and much, much more can be laid at the feet of the up-until-recently relatively unknown (to the public, that is) and very influential Council of Chief State Officers.

MAN, EDUCATION & SOCIETY IN THE YEAR 2000, WRITTEN BY GRANT VENN, DIRECTOR OF the Chief State School Officers Institute and professor of education at Georgia State University, was a report or summary of discussions which took place at the Fifth Annual Chief State School Officers Institute at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, July 25–August 2, 1974. The report of the Institute was sponsored by the U.S. Office of Education in cooperation with the Council of Chief State School Officers, funded by the Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. There is a notation on the back cover which states: “The availability of this report is limited. A single copy may be obtained free on request to the U.S. Office of Education as long as the supply lasts.” Dr. Venn’s best known publications are Man, Education and Work (1963) and Man, Education and Manpower (1971). Excerpts from Dr. Venn’s introduction to the Summary Report of the Institute follow:

Seven days of intensive study and discussion with the top leadership of the U.S. Office of Education and specialists invited to speak to the Chiefs reached an apparent consensus regarding issues that are facing Man, Education and Society: The Year 2000....

The seven topics chosen for study by the Executive Committee of the Council of Chief State School Officers, the U.S. Office of Education and the Institute Director... follow:

The Role of the Future in Education—Alvin Toffler

Education and Human Resource Development—Willard Wirtz

The International Situation: The Role of Education—Frederick Champion Ward

Economic Matters: Public Dollar Availability—Allan K.Campbell

The Shape of Democracy: The Citizen Role—Forbes Bottomly

The Public and Private Life of the Individual—Harold Shane

Energy, Natural Resources and Growth—Charles J. Ryan

Excerpts from the body of Dr. Venn’s summary follow:We have reached a point where society either educates everyone or supports them.... Technological change has, suddenly and dramatically, thrown up a challenge to our nation’s political, economic, and education institutions. If it is to be solved, it is going to demand a massive response on the part of American education. Technology has, in effect, created a new relationship between man, his education and his society....

The home, the church, and the school cannot be effective maintainers since the future cannot be predicted....

The clearest overall approach to finding better ways seemed to be a new role for the state departments of education....

From the question of finances to the question of values that should be taught in the schools, the consensus was that leadership and priority changing by state departments was the most important step to be taken....

After all the questions had been asked and all the dialogue ended, it appeared that the most difficult matter would be one of instituting new approaches to education.... Toffler’s belief that the schools have been a “maintaining” institution for a static predictable society was not agreed to by all, but there was agreement that education for the future had to end its reliance on the past as predictor of the future....

The traditional cluster of knowledge, skills, values, and concepts will not help our young face the future in their private life, the international situation, their citizen role, their work role, nor in the area of energy, national resources or growth....

…Individuals need more learning about social process with a greater emphasis on participation in group decision making. Again we come face to face with the fact that many problems of the future must be solved based on values and priorities set by groups. Many of these values will have to be enforced by group action and will need the involvement of many individuals in order that hard decisions can be implemented. Many of the future problems cannot be solved by individual decision or action. The heavy emphasis on individual achievement and competition may need to include learning about cooperation and group achievement....

As learning becomes more tied to the future, personal and societal change “values” come to the foreground. It is doubtful that we shall ever return to the concept of values in the same way we saw them in the past.... Perhaps there is a need for the clarification of new values needed to solve future problems. They may become clear as we begin a deliberate search for values we wish to teach and provide experiences for our young in using thesevalues in solving real problems....

It would appear that our young have become isolated from the “real work” of society and from the real decision making of society. Decision making [values clarification] may become the subject of the learning process if there are greater opportunities for “action learning” and group learning by teachers and students....

The over emphasis on knowledge, information, and theories have caused our youth to be freed from the testing of their beliefs in a non-controlled environment—the real world....

Conclusions

In addition to the three R’s, the basic skills would appear to include group participation, environmental relationships and planning for the future!... Organization, structure, role and purpose, methods, content, financing, relationships among school and society, leadership and time frames must all be evaluated and changed. The greatest danger seems to be that simple improvement rather than basic change might be attempted....

The following conclusions seem to be suggested as approaches which might bring about major change!... The states collectively should establish specific minimal competencies in each of the basic tool skill areas and each state should make them the first priorityfor funding, staffing and organizing....

Annual state reports should be devised to replace the normative achievement test in the future with competency achievement.... The states should convene a task force to study and report the ways that are being tried and ways that might be used to provide alternatives to earning the high school diploma....

Students achieving minimal credits ought to be encouraged to develop their unique aptitudes and to test these in the community, workforce, and the school systems.... There should be a policy devised in each of the states that ends the long held basic of “time in place” [Carnegie Unit] as the evaluation of learning for credit.

Regulations must be developed which encourage the use of the community, adults, students and other learning sites than the classroom and teachers.... Full-time attendance from grades one through twelve may have become a barrier to learning—what are the alternatives?... Educational credit should be available to students for activities related to their studies in work, volunteer action, community participation, school volunteer programs and other programs contributing to the betterment of the home, school, community and society.... The time traps of learning for the young, earning for the middle-aged and yearning for the retired must be changed to a concept of continuous learning [UNESCO's lifelong learning].